Black. Gay. Father. Vegetarian. Buddhist. Liberal.

The Obama Bandwagon

December 3, 2006by terrance

This train is bound for glory, this train. And in 2008 it may just be a question of whether you’re on it, under it, or — as I think I will be — standing by the track, watching it go by. As the 2008 presidential field shapes up, I’m remembering a little advice my dad once gave me about voting: “If you can’t find somebody to vote for, find somebody to vote against. But vote.”

While my dad’s intention was probably just to encourage me to take part in the political process, I think 2008 is going to be one of those years when I can’t find anybody to vote for, with any sense of enthusiasm anyway, and will have to settle for finding somebody to vote against. It will come down to the difference between thinking “I want him/her in office” or simply deciding “S/he’ll do.”

And as it looks like Barrack Obama is morphing into the Democrats Great Black Holy Hope for 2008, I guess I should start now working my way up to a rousing, enthusiastic, heartfelt, “He’ll do” Maybe.”

You’d think that might be enough to get me just a little excited. Well. Not so much. If Obama gets the nomination, I may vote for him. And if he wins, that’ll be great, but I won’t exactly stand up and cheer, because I pretty much know what time it is with me and Obama.

As a supposedly bipartisan politician who understands and reconciles opposing views, and a non-doctrinal Christian whose personal identity and life journey shaped his lens to include those on the margins, why then, I ask, is this presidential hopeful not united with lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer voters on the issue of marriage equality?

“I was reminded that it is my obligation not only as an elected official in a pluralistic society, but also as a Christian, to remain open to the possibility that my unwillingness to support gay marriage is misguided,” Obama wrote in his recent memoir, The Audacity of Hope.

… But he ought to know, as a civil rights attorney, that granting LGBTQ Americans only the right to civil unions violates our full constitutional right as well as reinstitutionalizes the 1896 U.S. Supreme Court decision Plessy v. Ferguson. As a result of that decision, the “separate but equal” doctrine became the rule of law until it was struck down in the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision.

However, Obama doesn’t understand that regardless of one’s gender expression or sexual orientation, we want equal status to be institutionalized within our marriages as well.

I’m not entirely unrealistic. (I plan to write another post about what we can reasonably expect from the Democratic Congress.) I know that no leading Democratic candidate is likely to come out in support of same-sex marriage, even if he or she privately supports it. That may be the case with Obama and his “willingness to be wrong.” Clinton didn’t. Kerry didn’t. Dean didn’t. And the next Democratic nominee almost certainly won’t. In that sense, Obama may be an “improbable gift during a horrible time”, a bridge that many may wish to cross over into someplace better than the last six years or so, or that leads to somewhere better than we’ve ended up. In that sense, he may be the candidate of many people’s hopes. But not mine. Not unless I choose to set some of my hopes aside.

This week, during a discussion of the 2008 Democratic field, someone asked me if I was jumping on the Obama bandwagon, and I shrugged it off. I can understand his effect on other people, but he just doesn’t do it for me. And there’s no candidate on the horizon that I can see giving my full, enthusiastic support who also has a shot at winning. The last time I felt any kind of enthusiasm for a candidate was for Clinton in ’92 and Dean in ’04, and we know how those both ended. Like I mentioned earlier, the one guy I was all set to support isn’t running, and there’s still the question of whether the one other guy I could support will be drafted or not. Meanwhile, there’s Hillary, Obama, Vilsack, Edwards, and possibly Kerry.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m sure Obama or any one of the above would be a better choice than just about anyone the Republicans could nominate. But once, just once, I’d like to have the audacity to vote my hopes — to borrow from the title of Obama’s latest book — and have it actually mean something.

Brotha Obama, the Safe Negro, as I’ve dubbed him, seems to have placed his manhood in a blind trust so as not to arouse the ire of the powers-that-be. He doesn’t seem to wish to rock the boat and unsettle the massive sea of swooning white folk who are prepared to put him in the White House this instant.

I remain skeptical of his abilities and his mettle, but hell, I’m game. I’ve been waiting for a real, live, black presidential run with legs for nearly twenty years and I ain’t got no luv for Miss Hillary.

I just wish the brotha stood for something other than self promotion. Is that too much to ask?

What? No mention of Gore? I suspect Gore has as good of chance as anyone and better than most. Here’s a couple Gore qoutes

“Your right to fall in love with who you fall in love with. And your right to expect that that will be recognized with the same dignity and honor that love is recognized for other couples.”

“You must have the right to be who you are, just as I have the right to be who I am”

“As I was on the way here, I reflected on why is there so much controversy about the question of equality for gays and lesbians. Why? This fight has been so long and so hard for something that is so simple and so right.”

Al Gore, speaking on March 25 at a gala dinner in Los Angeles for the Human Rights Campaign.

Vilsack has announced his candidacy in Iowa then flew right to New Hampshire. The following morning he was on NHPR. You can hear his hour long interview with Laura Knoy.

I listened to it on my way down to school. He said all the things I wanted to hear: renewable energy, “health care is a right, not a priviledge” (but didn’t offer any way of creating universal health care) and he talked about his relationship with god and spirituality.

As I hear more candidates, I’ll keep everyone posted on my site. But like yourself, I don’t see anyone worth voting for.

Well, out of that list, at this point I lean decidedly toward Obama. On the other hand, I still know nothing about Vilsack, and not as much as I’d like to about Obama, so that could all change by election time.

If the earlier primaries haven’t already picked the candidate by the time we Californians get to vote.

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Oh, come on. Christian Bale has a point. If Moses were around today — “hearing voices” and acting out — he’d probably be diagnosable as schizophrenic. After all, when people “hear voices” today, they end up as mental health patients, not prophets.